Running back to the conference now myself, gaucho I saw you take that picture and thought you held the camera backwards by accident because I saw Adam and Rob cracking up afterwards. :)Its been a great time so far. I will get my pictures up as soon as possible, at least by tonights.I have been so tired when I get home and then I drive back in the morning and am rushing around.There has been so much information here its incredible.

Natalie...

Do you want some cheese for you'r wine ??

BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

Natalie...

Thax for all the good pic you did a good job ;)

BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

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"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may remember,involve me and I'll understand" Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways." John F. KennedyFranklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

>>>>not what i'd expect to see with 3 boys and an electric fence, but this is a family site...<<<<

Kathy, these city folk don't know about the electric fence "initiation" ritual the country boys always introduce the city boys to. :shock: :shock: :evil:

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

Glad everyone enjoyed. Maybe they will have a get together around here in the next year or two.....I HOPE!....

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

This conference really was a blast, you all should try to make the next one.People came from all over but I do understand how tough it can be to get away, I was lucky this one was so close to me.

John I am sorry that you couldn't make it but there will be another one next year so hopefully you can join us.

I forgot to mention that we also met Bob N and his wife from new hampshire at the conference, he is a member here as well and I am glad that we met up.They were both really nice.

Jim 134, I hope you can make the next one as well but I will expect to at least see you at the next Mass Beek meeting in october.

I liked that this conference wasn't too large. I don't know how many people came but I know that Dean was only accepting 150 people max so it wasn't more than that.Dean and Ramona announced that they were asked to write a book and they accepted so they will be working on that and I think they expected to finish it by May.

Michael Bush, it was so great to meet you, I really enjoyed your presentations and your company. I am glad we met.

Beehopper I am glad that we found you even if it was later in the day, I really liked your friends as well.They were all great people and I exchanged information with Pat before she left.Dee Lusby is quite the character and you were lucky to get such face time with her.I ended up talking gardening with Michael Palmer at one point which I really enjoyed. He turned out to be a very friendly guy as well.

All of the presenters were really great about socializing with everyone and clarifying information from their presentations or just shooting the breeze.Michael Bush sat next to me during some of the talks and helped dumb things down for me when needed.He is an all around nice guy, funny and down to earth.

On the last day of the conference everyone was out in front of the venue with their notebooks exchanging contact information with eachother, I think everyone made new friends this weekend.

I guess that this is a good time for me to mention that I did enjoy meeting and speaking with a lot of the people at the conference.

First of all I would like to mention that I am really glad and honored that I had a chance to meet Michael Bush in person.

I also enjoyed listening and speaking with Erik Osterlund from Sweden in person. His knowledge and experience involving his trip to Africa in an attempt to obtain his strain of bees (queens) was really interesting. Also, just talking to him about "techniques" in general on the other side of this planet was very educational.

I did not personally speak with Dee Lusby but she appeared to be a really interesting and "down to earth" person. I enjoyed both of her lectures.

One other person who I was fascinated with was Michael Palmer from Vermont. His presentation was entitled "Overwintering Nucs and Beekeeping in New England". The thing that fascinated me about his talk was his method of doing "splits". Not "two" nucs out of one hive but "four" out of one weak colony! Another thing I admired about this gentlemen was his various knowledge on the subjects that he managed to throw in during other topics being discussed by other speakers.

The information I gained from Sam Comfort's talk on "top bar hive" beekeeping was fascinating and somewhat unbelievable. I have to say that if I was to really get into top bar hives I would probably spend a few more bucks ($) and do it "a little bit more fancy" than Sam. He claims that he has built some of his hives for around $5.00 in material. I could see that the hive he had "for show" did look like it was built out of "scrap" lumber. Being a "gentlemen" beekeeper as I am, I would probably spend a couple of hundred bux ($) and have something more "elegant" to display in my back yard.

Last but not least Dean and Ramona's lecture was also interesting. As previously stated, Ramona gave a speech on microbes and the honeybee. Dean's final talk was about photography and turned out to be very interesting. I am glad that he did not get too technical and managed to pass the point without getting us all confused. I am definitely going to go out with my Canon camera and experiment a littlebit more now.

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My favorite comedy program used to be Glenn Beck--The only thing is that after I heard the same joke over and over again it became BOOOORING.....

People who have inspired me throughout my life---Pee-wee Herman, Adolph Hitler, George W. Bush, Glenn Beck.Notice I did not say they were people who I admire !!!

I thought I'd take a moment to chime in as well. I certainly had an awesome time. It was great to meet and get to know everyone better.

Natalie; great job with the pics, although it reminds me why I try to stay behind the camera most of the time :) Reigning ME in eh, truth be told...................

Gaucho10 sorry I didn't have time to stop by and check out your beeyard. Those lectures that lasted past 10PM were killers and I really needed to get on the road before I fell asleep. Maybe next year.

Michael, it was nice to meet you in person. I really enjoyed your presentations and just chatting as well.

About the conference;Mike Palmers presentation on overwintering nucs was fascinating to say the least. I'll be mulling over how I take what I learned from his presentation and Sam Comforts discussion about his topbar operation and implement the best practices for my own future plans. Dee Lusby's presentations where interesting for sure, although I will say you better be well rested and able to concentrate if you want to keep track of everything she's talking about :) She definitely packs a lot of info on several subjects(just doesn't always connect the dots for you). Ramona's presentation on Microbes in the hive was absolutely fascinating and by itself was enough to justify making the attempt to keep bees the way I instinctively thought I should be doing it.

I know I'm leaving out a lot and I really should have taken better notes, but I guess that's all the excuse I need to go again next year :)

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Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.--Douglas Adams

It was a pleasure to meet so many wonderful Beemaster folks this past weekend. I have to confess that going into the conference I was a bit worried that there was going to be too much information, and my brain would simply go to mush. While it certainly was a lot of information, leaving each night after 10pm, the presentations were fantastic and kept me on the edge of my seat. Michael Palmer's session on overwintering nucs blew me away...

Gaucho10, sorry I couldn't swing by your place on the way out. I was trying to catch an early flight, but it turned out everything was delayed.

Now that it's been a week since the Conference, I am pondering how to begin applying my new found knowledge, do I stop the treatments altogether ( Apiguard and sugar dusting )and let the colonies be ? Do I start culling the old combs and begin installing small cell foundation or put in a few foundationless frames or wait till spring ? Do I leave more honey with them for the winter and not feed ? Decisions, decisions :-\

BeeHoper, Last year I was doing sugar feeding in the spring, ans sugar dusting sometime in the summer. This is the first time I was going to go with "no chemicals. Then I found out that sugar feeding and sugar dusting is considered a nono if you want to go to all "natural". So during late Summer, fall, winter and all of this year I did no sugar feeding, no sugar dusting, no chemicals/meds. and I started foundationless. Got to go slow on the foundationless. A little at a time until you faze out your foundation frames. That might take me into next season.

Then I went to the conference. Now I really want to keep going with the foundationless. I allways feed honey for the winter (my reserves for them). If they make it into the next spring honey flow I then start using last years honey for myself.

As far as "should you just stop feeding meds"? I never fed them meds right from the start (NUCs). They did ok. Don't forget...if you are not going to medicate, make sure you are doing some type of IPM. I personally do SBB and screened top covers. Some people believe that you don't need that but I have had luck so far. Is it because of the IPM??? I don't know...Is it because I don't medicate??? I don't know... Is it because I have good luck??? I don't know...

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My favorite comedy program used to be Glenn Beck--The only thing is that after I heard the same joke over and over again it became BOOOORING.....

People who have inspired me throughout my life---Pee-wee Herman, Adolph Hitler, George W. Bush, Glenn Beck.Notice I did not say they were people who I admire !!!

BeeHoper, Last year I was doing sugar feeding in the spring, ans sugar dusting sometime in the summer. This is the first time I was going to go with "no chemicals. Then I found out that sugar feeding and sugar dusting is considered a nono if you want to go to all "natural". So during late Summer, fall, winter and all of this year I did no sugar feeding, no sugar dusting, no chemicals/meds. and I started foundationless. Got to go slow on the foundationless. a little at a time until you faze out your foundation frames. That might take me into next season.

Then I went to the conference. Now I really want to keep going with the foundationless. I allways feed honey for the winter (my reserves for them). If they make it into the next spring honey flow I then start using last years honey for myself.

As far as "should you just stop feeding meds"? I never fed them meds right from the start (NUCs). They did ok. Don't forget...if you are not going to medicate, make sure you are doing some type of IPM. I personally do SBB and screened top covers. Some people believe that you don't need that but I have had luck so far. Is it because of the IPM??? I don't know...Is it because I don't medicate??? I don't know... Is it because I have good luck??? I don't know...

gaucho10,

Sounds like you're well on the right path. I thought the foundationless technique would be a slow process, but is it too late to begin now ? I have used soft chems ( apiguard ) in conjunction with the SBB with success, I intend to go chem-free. Will the bees draw out a foundationless deep as willingly as with the mediums that most folks have ? As you can see, the questions are coming out of my noggin now when they should have while at the conference

Luckily this is my first year and I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to do things and it all jived with what we learned at the conference.I started with nucs this spring and put them right onto foundationless and got rid of the frames they came on within a couple of weeks.They built them out fairly quickly, some quicker than others. I use all mediums but I don't see what the difference would be with deeps.I have done no treatments and don't plan to. But I do use screened bottom boards, slatted racks and screened inner covers.I don't know how much extra frames of honey they will have going into winter given that they had to start out building alot of foundation and we have had alot of rain but I am going to freeze any combs of honey that they don't need to overwinter on and feed them back in the spring.As far sugar dusting, I believe it causes the same issues in the gut as feeding them sugar so you can consider that.To be honest since I never planned on using any treatments to begin with I have not familiarized myself apiguard or any of the rest.Its a risk no matter what, if you don't treat and they die this winter would they have died anyway?

The easy decision for you is probably the feeding, if you can leave them more honey and not have to feed them sugar then you are already making a good change.I am not sure how much they will build comb right now as far as foundationless or small cell.

Since we don't have a huge fall nectar flow in my area of North Carolina my plan is to wait until Spring to try and start reducing cell size (probably shaking onto foundationless frames). However, I am going to exeriment with some of what I learned in Michael Palmer's session on overwintering nucs.